Thursday, March 28, 2013

More adults (than teens) text while driving

Do you wonder why kids think it's OK to yap on the phone, or text, while driving?

Because they see the grownups doing it.

A new study indicates that while 98% of adults know that texting or emailing while driving is unsafe, 49% of them do it anyway. (This compares with the 43% of teens who admit to texting while driving.)

Apparently "awareness" and laws (it's illegal in 39 states and D.C.) aren't incentive enough. I hope each one of the miscreants doesn't have to kill somebody or damage somebody's property to get the message.

"Researchers at Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that sending or receiving a text takes a driver's eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds — about as long as it takes to drive the length of a football field at 55 mph. The researchers found that texting creates a crash risk 23 times worse than driving while not distracted."

(I've said it before and I'll say it forever! I'm conservative, and all in favor of people making their own choices, and then being responsible for those choices. If people only endangered themselves by clicky-clicking, yapping on the phone, driving drunk, running red lights, etc., I'd say let each person decide! But the harsh reality is... those irresponsible yahoos are out there killing innocent bystanders... and I don't want me or one of my loved ones to end up being one of those bystanders!)

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